diblog | May 27, 2010
(First written June 11, 2007: a doula’s perspective.)
G’s labour was my third attendance at a labour not-my-own. I am struck by the fact that, should I have been raised in a farming community far away from anywhere else, I would probably work very hard to become a midwife. I really enjoy being in support of a [...]
diblog | May 27, 2010
At 3:45 a.m., May 19, 2004, my son Jackson (2 ½ years old) woke me up by coming to our bed. He said, “Mummy, I’m sore.” When I felt him, I realized that he was burning up. We went back to his bed and I lay down with him for a few minutes. I realized [...]
diblog | May 26, 2010
In the summer of 1971 I was 21. I discovered that I was pregnant. I was single and had just finished my second year of teaching. I was visiting my step-brother and his wife in Niagara Falls when I found out.
I knew right away how I was going [...]
diblog | May 22, 2010
This was my first pregnancy. My birth story isn’t idyllic, but it’s a story I love. During an early appointment, my midwife made a comment that stuck with me: “Some births seem so straightforward and beautiful and the woman feels disappointed; other births are downright violent and the woman is still so happy. I think [...]
diblog | May 22, 2010
Zadyn Pele was due on September 11th, 2009, and didn’t arrive until September 20th, 2009. I had chosen to do a natural homebirth with my two amazing midwives T and C.
After Zadyn’s due date came and went I started to feel very antsy. The discomfort of late pregnancy was really getting to me. I couldn’t sleep through the night because [...]
diblog | May 13, 2010
Like many things to do with pregnancy, it’s odd how much women’s stories can help other women more than any of the books out there. I learned that labour doesn’t necessarily happen like in the books – I was four centimetres dilated (beginning of active labour, right books?), but having 2-minute contractions every 2.5 minutes [...]
diblog | May 10, 2010
This is how I came to decide on homebirth, and why it was the best choice for me. I have a friend who was studying to be a midwife when my husband and I were first married. She was the one who first started talking to me about the physiology of birth and how hospital [...]
diblog | May 10, 2010
Here is my first birth story. It is as I wrote it at the time. I know it’s absurdly long – and you already know there’s a baby at the end, so I’ll understand if you don’t read the whole thing. But hey, the labour was absurdly long, so there you go. And [...]
diblog | May 2, 2010
Thank you for being here! I hope you find what you came for.
Here is the story behind MotherGather. When I was pregnant, I asked practically every mother I could find to tell me her birth stories. I wanted to hear what birth is really like, not the hypothetical situations you read about in pregnancy books [...]
